What the evidence shows
Every claim on this site is backed by Senate testimony, regulatory findings, peer-reviewed research, or the companies' own admissions. All public. All verifiable. Start anywhere.
What a public school Facebook Page exposes children to right now
Nine documented risks. Every one sourced.
| Risk | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Misuse of imagery harvested from school social media | Documented | 100+ reports to eSafety, Jan to Mar 2026, almost all involving imagery harvested from school social media or websites |
| Federal guidance contradicted by NSW policy | Current | eSafety advisory 28 July 2026 against PD-2011-0418-01 |
| Meta AI training on children's photos | Confirmed | Admitted under oath, Australian Senate, Sept 2024 |
| Facial recognition scraping | Confirmed | 50B+ images. OAIC found breach of Privacy Act |
| AI training dataset inclusion | Confirmed | 362 AU children in <0.0001% sample (HRW, July 2024) |
| Deepfake generation from school photos | Active threat | 50+ Melbourne schoolgirls, June 2024. Reports doubling. |
| Search engine indexing | Confirmed | Standard for all public Facebook Pages |
| Consent form inadequacy | Systemic | Binary choice. No AI disclosure. No expiry. |
| Regulatory non-compliance risk | Growing | Children's Privacy Code due December 2026 |
The evidence in detail
Six threads, newest first. Each one documented with primary sources. Click through for the full evidence.
The Advisory
The newest and highest-authority item. On 28 July 2026 the eSafety Commissioner told schools to move student imagery into closed or restricted spaces, and reported 100+ cases of harvested school imagery in a single quarter. NSW policy requires the opposite.
AI Training
Meta confirmed under oath to the Australian Senate that it scrapes every public post since 2007 to train AI. Children's photos are included. Australians have no opt-out.
Facial Recognition
Clearview AI scraped 50 billion+ photos from Facebook for facial recognition. The Australian Information Commissioner found it breached the Privacy Act. The database grew after the deletion order.
Deepfakes
AI-generated explicit images of 50+ schoolgirls at a Melbourne school. Created from publicly accessible photos. Deepfake reports to the eSafety Commissioner are doubling year on year.
Training Datasets
Human Rights Watch found 362 identifiable Australian children in a single AI dataset, from less than 0.0001% of the data. Some photos came from school uploads.
No Consent
The NSW consent form is binary: all public publishing or nothing. It makes no mention of AI training, facial recognition, or deepfakes. It was written before any of this existed.
How it all connects
The evidence above documents what is happening. The system below explains why.
Ready to act?
The evidence is clear. The fix is one clause in one departmental procedure, and it can be changed without legislation.
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Last reviewed: April 2026